A Tantalising Glimpse

Inspired by someone’s recent post on a writer’s forum where they asked for quotes from characters, I’ve put together some quick extracts from ‘The Queen of Scots Mystery’. They may not make much sense out of context, and in fact I’m hoping they don’t! But maybe they will convey a flavour of the novel, although it is not yet in its final shape. By the way, the quotes aren’t necessarily shown in the right order here, just to make things even more confusing, but despite this they do give a couple of very tiny clues about what’s going on.

‘You’ll never guess what’s happened!’ said Jock, advancing into the house with only this small amount of encouragement.

‘Have you seen it?’ said Jemima to Neil. ‘Something to do with zombie horror. There was a special showing for pensioners. Half price. We got a cup of tea and some biscuits – only rich tea, though, not custard creams.’

‘We had to live on falafels,’ she said. ‘It was a cruel and unusual punishment.’

‘Are you aware, sir,’ said one of the men cautiously, ‘that you’re listed as the next of kin of Miss Amaryllis Peebles?’

‘I don’t keep all those things in my head the way you do,’ said Christopher crossly, rubbing a hand across his brow.

I wish I hadn’t bothered cheering you up,’ said Amaryllis, giving him a hard stare.

‘I don’t think so…’ He pictured the scene. ‘Someone walked past. Oh, no, it was only Christopher Wilson,’ he added dismissively. ‘I wouldn’t bother about him if I were you.’

‘We’ll decide who to bother about, if you don’t mind, Mr Macrae.’

Now, now, Charlie,’ said Jemima, who had treated Mr Smith like one of the family ever since the time she had let him sleep in her spare room. ‘Just try and pretend you’re not a policeman for five minutes.’